traditional and modern societies—
a concept variously interpreted by
many subsequent sociologists.
Toward the end of the 19th
century, sociology proved itself as a
field of study distinct from history,
philosophy, politics, and economics,
largely thanks to Émile Durkheim.
Adopting Comte’s idea of applying
scientific methodology to the study
of society, he took biology as his
model. Like Herbert Spencer before
him, Durkheim saw society as an
“organism” with different “organs,”
each with a particular function.
An interpretive approach
While Durkheim’s objective rigor
won him academic acceptance, not
all sociologists agreed that it was
possible to examine social issues
with scientific methods, nor that
there are “laws” of society to be
discovered. Max Weber advocated
a more subjective—“interpretive”—
approach. Whereas Marx
named capitalism, and Durkheim
industrialization, as the major
force of modernity, Weber’s focus
was on the effects on individuals of
rationalization and secularization.
A strictly scientific discipline
was gradually supplanted by a
sociology that was a study of
qualitative ideas: immeasurable
notions such as culture, identity,
and power. By the mid-20th century
sociologists had shifted from a
macro view of society to the micro
view of individual experience.
Charles Wright Mills urged
sociologists to make the connection
between the institutions of society
(especially what he called the
“power elite”) and how they
affect the lives of ordinary people.After World War II, others took a
similar stance: Harold Garfinkel
advocated a complete change of
sociological methods, to examine
social order through the everyday
actions of ordinary people; while
Michel Foucault analyzed the way
power relations force individuals to
conform to social norms, especially
sexual norms—an idea taken
further in Judith Butler’s study
of gender and sexuality.
By the end of the century, a
balance had been found between
the objective study of society as a
whole and the interpretive study of
individual experience. The agenda
had been set by a handful of
ground-breaking sociologists,
and their various methods are
now being applied to the study
of society in an increasingly
globalized late-modern world. ■FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY
1895
1893
1946
1904–05 1959 1975
1967 1990
Charles Wright Mills and
Hans Heinrich Gerth
introduce Weber’s
ideas to the
English-speaking public
in From Max Weber:
Essays in Sociology.Max Weber, in The
Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism,
offers a novel explanation
of how modern
society evolved.In The Sociological
Imagination, Charles
Wright Mills argues
sociologists should
suggest the means of
improving society.Michel Foucault
begins his study
of the nature of
power in society
in Discipline
and Punish.Harold Garfinkel presents
a new methodology
for sociology, observing
the everyday actions
that foster social
order, in Studies
in Ethnomethodology.Judith Butler
questions traditional
ideas of gender and
sexuality in Gender
Trouble: Feminism
and the Subversion
of Identity.In The Division of
Labor in Society, Émile
Durkheim describes the
organic solidarity
of interdependent
individuals.Émile Durkheim founds
the first European
department of
sociology at the
University of Bordeaux,
and publishes The Rules
of Sociological Method.19